Life After
by LillyZ
Summary: At the end of Breaking Dawn the fight did happen. Under Bella's orders, Jacob ran away, taking renesmee and seperating her from her family. Six years later and still on the run, a nearly-matured Renesmee makes some surprising discoveries, and takes a journey to revist her painfull past.
1. Chapter 1

Life After

1. Quiet Reminiscing

"TELL ME ABOUT THEM."

We had already finished eating dinner ant cleaning the kitchen of its remnants. So we sat in front of the fire place, staring at the flickering fire. The warmth it radiated did nothing for either one of us; the temperature our bodies were, we were rarely ever cold.

We sat on the floor, our backs against the couch, and I leaned my head on his wide chest. I stared off into the flames and my mind wandered to a different fire place, in a different setting. The people gathered before it were tenser, but the love in the room was evident. Someone laughed.

"Tell me about them."

"What do you want to know?" he asked, playing with one of my bronze ringlets.

I pulled a small, silver necklace with a locket from my pocket and opened it. My fingers flittered over it ever so carefully; as if afraid it would crumble and disappear.

I brushed one cautious thumb across the woman's face. She was unimaginably beautiful; pale, slender, with long chocolate-brown hair and strangely tinted eyes—a color between dull crimson and gold.

"Tell me about her. What was she like?"

I felt his body tense for a few seconds and then relax a little. It was a painful subject, for both of us, but I had to know.

I was only a few months old when we ran. Because of the way I grow, I was really the size of the average three-year-old human, and mentally seven or eight at least. Despite that—and all the other things I could do as a vampire-human hybrid—I had only spent those few short months with my parents. I remember them—and all the rest of the family as well—but memories have never been enough. I miss them terribly. The only thing that helped, even if just a little bit, was hearing about them from Jake,

"Your mother was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even as a human. She was shy, somewhat of an outsider to society, but kind and good. She was clumsy as a human, and we had a lot of good laughs and fun. She was my best friend. We stood by each other and helped one another through a lot of hard times. Even when I first joined the pack and I insisted on keeping myself away from her she wouldn't give up on me."

I put a hand to his cheek and showed him an old memory of a lot of really big wolves.

He nodded.

"Do you miss them?"

"I do." He paused. "We were like brothers; one big family."

I hesitated, looking at the man in the photo.

"What about…You didn't like my father though." A statement, not a question.

He knew he was trapped and sighed in defeat. "For a long time your father and I were… on _bad_ terms… we hated each other," he admitted. "After you were born things got better. He resented me for having imprinted on you, but we both came to the conclusion that there needed to be an understanding between us if we wanted to make sure you were safe and happy." He hesitated. "I wouldn't say we were friends, but there was an evident comradeship. I think… I think the closer we got to the battle the closer we became. A sort of comradeship of arms formed."

Then he became silent.

I let the subject go, not asking any more questions.

I looked at the fire place and listened to the rain falling outside, washing the world clean.

"It's been six years since the day we fled, and still, it's hard to talk about everything." His voice was huskier as he spoke; tears were chocking his throat.

"Six years…" I mumbled. It didn't feel like six years—it felt like a lifetime. I looked at the back of my hand and then turned it over. It didn't _seem_ like six years either. Because in those six years I had grown fourteen—I had grown from a frightened three-year-old to a defensive and protective seventeen-year-old. I was no longer Nessie, the scared child that had been sent away by her parents so that her life would be saved; I was Renesmee, the vampire-human hybrid, one of a kind, strong, and fiercely deadly.

"It's getting late," Jake murmured in my ear. "I'll go run the perimeter; you get ready for bed."

I nodded and got up. I held out a hand, he took it, and I pulled him up. He hugged me and disappeared.

I sighed and made my way to the room that was mine.

Despite the six years that had passed, we never stayed in one place for too long. Jake said it's dangerous. I never asked why; I didn't need to. The long line of dark cloaks and thirsty red eyes was burned into my mind like a scar from a hot rod iron. Jake said that if they ever found us, it would be our end. I believed him; it was impossible to forget the shrieks and metal-tearing sounds that could be heard for miles as they ripped my family into piles of limbs, and later, burned them to ashes.

I shuddered and spat the minty foam into the sink. I put the toothbrush away and climbed into bed.

I lay in the dark for a long time, the memories of my family running through my mind like short clips from a movie.

I was still awake when Jake came back. I could hear the door close behind him, and his footsteps as he entered the room across the hall from mine. I listened as he closed the door, the water ran as he showered, and some time later, I found myself listening to his slow breathing as he slept.

Now that I knew he was safe, _we_ were safe, I could allow myself to slip off, and sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Getting Out

**A.N.:** Hey guys! I know I haven't updated in forever, and I'm really, really sorry. This story is a [relatively] happy one, and I had a really crappy few months, so I couldn't find it in myself to write this story. So I hope this chapter is long enough and not too crappy for your taste…

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Twilight universe or its characters, Stephanie Meyer does.

2. Getting Out

"WHEN I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, I PULLED ON A PAIR OF comfortable running shoes and some sturdy clothes and then snuck out to hunt.

Though my thirst was for human blood, I continued hunting according to what had been my family's diet—I drank animal blood.

The first couple of years with Jake I needed his company on my hunts; I was afraid I might catch a human scent and try to hunt it. Jacob always complied, but I had a feeling it had more to do with his paranoia than with a stranger human's safety. No matter how much time passed, that didn't seem to lessen (the paranoia). But as I grew older and bigger, and more insistent, Jacob finally eased up on the subject. He let me hunt alone as long as I stayed in a fifty-mile radius from wherever he was, stayed away from human residence, and trained.

His last condition had me puzzled. Train? Train in what? He didn't have an answer. "Everything," he had said, "anything we can think of." Thus it came to be that I learned to track, navigate, fight, use face-to-face combat, and even use a gun. I had been surprised when he had brought the small, black gun to the motel we stayed in.

"You know it can't hurt me," I protested, pointed to the weapon in disgust.

"We don't _know_ that. Besides, it can hurt _me_, and it can hurt humans. It's just a precaution," he assured.

So I trained and became an excellent shot. I traveled with it in a special case that hung from my shoulder. No matter how much time passed, every time I touched it I could see my father's furious face, as it probably would have looked had he known that his precious, little, and only daughter was trained in shooting, and was personally carrying the cold, metallic weapon.

I ran, my elbows grazing against my sides, and I felt relieved that there was nothing there. Carrying the gun truly was a burden.

I halted and looked around for the source of the thudding. Off to the west, I heard the slow thudding of an elk's heart. After a few seconds of listening, I heard four more. Small herd, but it would still do.

I wasn't as fast as a vampire, but I was fast enough for hunts.

I took off to the west, running quickly, silently, towards the prey. I hid behind a tree for a few seconds, and then pounced.

I drank the elk's blood, afterwards chasing down another deer and drinking its blood too.

I was full, at least for a while. I would have to feed again before we reached more populated areas.

I wiped a bit of blood off my lips and licked it from my fingers. Then I turned, and ran back, east to the cabin.

"Good morning!" Jake called when I entered the house through the back door, walking into the living room. The cabin we were currently staying in had an open living room and kitchen area, divided by a marble-top kitchen island with high chairs on the side of the living room (so when you sit there, you're facing the kitchen). Jake was standing in front of the kitchen island, cooking on the stove there.

I could smell his breakfast cooking; eggs, bacon, and toast. I didn't particularly like the smell of human food, but I had gotten used to it. I had no choice; when we stayed in cities or over-populated areas with nowhere to hunt I had to survive on human food. It kept me full and strong, but the blood—though animal blood—tasted better.

"Good morning to you too," I said, grinning.

I entered the kitchen area and sat on the other side of the island stove from him.

"Do you want some?" He raised the pan filled with scrambled eggs.

"I just hunted."

He frowned. "Right, right…" He sat down next to me, his plate piled high with food.

I watched him as he ate.

Jake was my everything; he was my only connection to my old life, he had been my protector for six years, and he was my best friend.

I smiled and shook my head.

"What?" he asked, his voice muffled by his full mouth.

"Nothing," I chuckled. "But if you keep eating this much I'll have to go into town and buy some more food."

"Okay."

"Yeah?" I was surprised. Jake was so overprotective, that he was sometimes afraid to walk around people. He was afraid of the sun suddenly breaking out of the clouds and my skin glimmering, and someone noticing … Or that the smell of human blood and sound of human hearts pounding would be too much for me to handle… The fact that he was letting me go into town was incredible, and _rare_.

"Sure."

"Thanks Jake." I got up, kissed him on the cheek, and ran to my room to dig out a wad of cash from its hiding place. I put it in a wallet, and put that inside the purse that carried what we needed most: our fake passports, fake IDs, and driver's licenses (I had gotten mine a few months prior). I pulled the strap over my shoulder and walked out of the room back to the kitchen.

"Jake, grab a shirt or something; you're coming with me," I declared.

He was washing the dishes, and turned around to look at me in surprise.

"Why?"

"We both need new clothes. You only have one more set of clothes other than these pants, and you'll burst out of them soon enough. And I, well, I _grew_." I cleared my throat awkwardly.

He sized me up and shrugged. "Not by much."

"But enough. Besides, the friction tears the clothes when I travel on your back."

I rarely ever rode on Jake's back nowadays. If we had to, I did, but normally I enjoyed running myself. Sometimes when we traveled really long distances, we would run full days. When I got tired, I rode on Jake's back, sometimes even slept while he continued to run. He was better than me at that—running for long distances. When we ran together he was always making sure to run at my speed, which was slightly slow for him. Of course, I _could_ run faster, but it was easier to run long distances in that pace, so Jake settled. Not only could he run faster than me, but he could also run for longer periods of time too. All in all, the only way I could ever beat Jake in running was if he was in his human form.

"I'm not planning on busting out of my clothes anytime soon," he said, almost like a by-the-way comment, as if it didn't have much importance. But the offended tone of his voice gave him away—he had been hurt by my innocent comment on his sometimes fragile self-control.

I rolled my eyes. "This isn't to offend you Jake. I simply know that soon enough you'll get panicky when I go hunt, or you lash out about something. It's bound to happen; always does. You might as well face the facts and come shopping with me."

We simply stood across from each other, staring. I knew how he'd cave; he could never bear to say no to me. And after a few minutes he did so, with a sigh.

"Fine," he muttered, "but I choose what to wear and what to buy myself; I won't have you dressing me up like some puppet."

I smiled victoriously. "Of course not, silly, since when do I do that?"

He rolled his eyes, but I could see the corner of his lips pulling up.

"Besides, we don't need anything nice; we need sturdy and comfortable. As long as it lasts, I'm willing to buy it. I won't spend unnecessary money on anything else."

An amused smile was plastered on/across his face. "Your mother would be so proud. Alice on the other hand…" he snorted "Alice would be furious."

The light, bubbly feeling of happiness slipped away from me at the mention of my deceased family members. A moment passed and I managed a small smile. "I guess they would be. Not that it matters."

An uncomfortable silence fell.

Eventually Jake walked away for a few minutes and returned with a shirt and shoes on.

"You've got the purse, right?"

I shook myself out of my stupor and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, yes, of course."

He paused, put a hand on my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Okay then, let's go."

"Let's go."

**A.N.:** Review! I'll do my best to update soon, but I need to know what you guys think. So please, please, review!


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